Monday, August 17, 2015

NEW YORK NY - MICHAEL PUZZO, 47-YEAR-OLD ACTOR AND PLAYWRIGHT TELLS ABOUT TAKING HIS LITTLE MALTESE MIX FOR A WALK AND ENCOUNTERING ANOTHER "CRUSTY PUNK WITH A PIT"

Last Tuesday, hours before a pit bull belonging to homeless men attacked 42-year-old Ed Vassilev in the East Village and bit "through" his arm, another East Village resident was attacked by a pit bull in a very similar manner.

Michael Puzzo, a 47-year-old actor and playwright, says he was walking his girlfriend's dog Bobito, a 10-year-old, 9-pound Havanese-Maltese mix, on East 6th Street near 2nd Avenue early in the morning on August 5th. It was about 2:00 a.m. when he came across a man and his brindle-brown pit bull asleep in the middle of the sidewalk.

"I came across this crusty punk guy who looked like Charles Manson," Puzzo told us this morning. "Long dark hair, beard, torn black camouflage tee. You come across these people sleeping on the sidewalk all the time, but something told me I should be careful. Maybe because the pit looked like a sleeping tiger: large and a brownish with black stripes." Puzzo estimates that the pit bull was about 50 pounds to Bobito's 9 (for comparison, Puzzo tends to refer to Bobito as a "tic-tac.")

Puzzo says that he started to walk around the "situation" as slowly as possible, but that the dog opened its eyes as soon as Puzzo and his dog came close ("like when you come across a sleeping vampire," Puzzo analogized). "I yanked my dog's harness up like a fuzzy yo-yo and blocked the pit's mouth with my arm," Puzzo said. "It was nothing like Ed's arm but it still was pretty fucking bloody and painful. To be bitten by a dog is a very strange feeling. It felt like someone had lit my arm on fire."

According to Puzzo, the pit bull latched onto the underside of his right arm. He's not sure how long the pit bull held on, but Puzzo says that the dog's owner woke up almost immediately, and started yanking, incongruously, at Bobito's leash. Although Puzzo doesn't remember how he got the dog off of him ("All I was thinking was that I had to get my dog out of there," he recalled), he does remember the dog circling around him and Bobito until his owner managed to chase him off. Puzzo also remembers asking if the pit bull had shots, to which the owner answered yes.

Puzzo, who lives next door to the 9th Precinct, walked over to file a police report around 2:30 a.m., after stopping at home to address the bleeding with a paper towel. He says that the officers were friendly, and offered to call an ambulance. "They questioned me, but they wrote everything down on a paper towel," Puzzo said, adding that he soon learned that dog attacks of this nature are not deemed criminal (according to an NYPD spokesman, charges can't be filed unless the owner “directed the dog to attack"). Puzzo took a taxi to Beth Israel around 3:00 a.m., where a doctor dressed the wound and gave him aspirin. He didn't get a rabies shot because, according to the doctor, New York State hasn't documented a single rabid dog in the past decade.

Around 11:30 that same morning, a pit bull who appeared to belong to two young homeless men, both sleeping, ran down the sidewalk after Vassilev and his dog, Misha, on 2nd Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets. When Vassilev picked up his dog, the pit bull latched onto his arm. Vassilev had to have his triceps muscle stitched together at a local hospital, and the wound later became infected. He was briefly hospitalized, and says that he's suffered permanent nerve damage. The dog, meanwhile, is undergoing observation at Animal Care and Control.

Puzzo hasn't seen the dog who attacked him, or the dog's owner, since the incident last Tuesday. However, he says he's talked to Vassilev's wife, and confirmed that the dog who attacked him was grey and white. "It would be better if there were just one dog tearing up the neighborhood," Puzzo said, adding, "I'm the luckiest motherfucker because I just got bit. And it still hurts, and is bruised, but it's finally healing, and my dog is alive."

The Post reports that Vassilev was not pleased to learn that the police would not arrest the owner of the pit who bit him, and told the tabloid it's all de Blasio's fault, because there are apparently "tons" of "new" homeless people with pit bull sidekicks.

Puzzo disagrees. "First of all, the crust punks aren't homeless," he said. "They are like vacationers camping on my street." Still, "If you choose to be homeless, you shouldn't be able to have a dog unless you take care of it properly. The problem is that these dogs aren't fixed, and they're not on leashes."

"I've lived in the East Village for 18 years," Puzzo said. "And the crusty punks have been here for at least 10."

3 comments:

nice little dog not ripped up and killed but the owner bitten and the useless cops not able to charge the worthless pit owner with squat even when thats all they do is squat . sickening . i think we need charles manson to take of things for us .

THE CODE OF ALABAMA - 1975

Title: 6 CIVIL PRACTICE

Section 6-5-120

Defined.

A "nuisance" is anything that works hurt, inconvenience or damage to another. The fact that the act done may otherwise be lawful does not keep it from being a nuisance. The inconvenience complained of must not be fanciful or such as would affect only one of a fastidious taste, but it should be such as would affect an ordinary reasonable man.

(Code 1907, §5193; Code 1923, §9271; Code 1940, T. 7, §1081

Section 6-5-121

_____________________

Distinction between public and private nuisances; right of action generally.

Nuisances are either public or private. A public nuisance is one which damages all persons who come within the sphere of its operation, though it may vary in its effects on individuals. A private nuisance is one limited in its injurious effects to one or a few individuals. Generally, a public nuisance gives no right of action to any individual, but must be abated by a process instituted in the name of the state. A private nuisance gives a right of action to the person injured.

Use of force in defense of a person.

(a) A person is justified in using physical force upon another person in order to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by that other person, and he or she may use a degree of force which he or she reasonably believes to be necessary for the purpose. A person may use deadly physical force, and is legally presumed to be justified in using deadly physical force in self-defense or the defense of another person pursuant to subdivision (4), if the person reasonably believes that another person is:

(1) Using or about to use unlawful deadly physical force.

(2) Using or about to use physical force against an occupant of a dwelling while committing or attempting to commit a burglary of such dwelling.

(3) Committing or about to commit a kidnapping in any degree, assault in the first or second degree, burglary in any degree, robbery in any degree, forcible rape, or forcible sodomy.

(4) In the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or has unlawfully and forcefully entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or federally licensed nuclear power facility, or is in the process of sabotaging or attempting to sabotage a federally licensed nuclear power facility, or is attempting to remove, or has forcefully removed, a person against his or her will from any dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle when the person has a legal right to be there, and provided that the person using the deadly physical force knows or has reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act is occurring. The legal presumption that a person using deadly physical force is justified to do so pursuant to this subdivision does not apply if:

a. The person against whom the defensive force is used has the right to be in or is a lawful resident of the dwelling, residence, or vehicle, such as an owner or lessee, and there is not an injunction for protection from domestic violence or a written pretrial supervision order of no contact against that person;

b. The person sought to be removed is a child or grandchild, or is otherwise in the lawful custody or under the lawful guardianship of, the person against whom the defensive force is used;

c. The person who uses defensive force is engaged in an unlawful activity or is using the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle to further an unlawful activity; or

d. The person against whom the defensive force is used is a law enforcement officer acting in the performance of his or her official duties.

(b) A person who is justified under subsection (a) in using physical force, including deadly physical force, and who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and is in any place where he or she has the right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground.

(c) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a), a person is not justified in using physical force if:

(1) With intent to cause physical injury or death to another person, he or she provoked the use of unlawful physical force by such other person.

(2) He or she was the initial aggressor, except that his or her use of physical force upon another person under the circumstances is justifiable if he or she withdraws from the encounter and effectively communicates to the other person his or her intent to do so, but the latter person nevertheless continues or threatens the use of unlawful physical force.

(3) The physical force involved was the product of a combat by agreement not specifically authorized by law.

(d) A person who uses force, including deadly physical force, as justified and permitted in this section is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force, unless the force was determined to be unlawful.

(e) A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force described in subsection (a), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force used was unlawful.